Linux, Java, ActiveMQ and absolute path

This site:

http://activemq.apache.org/how-do-i-use-ssl.html

says that:

In Linux, do not use absolute path to keystore. By default, keytool uses ~/.keystore, but in some setups passing -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=/home/account/.keystore to Java VM does not work. This is not ActiveMQ specific but good to keep in mind anyway.

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I do not understand the ~/keystore commend.  I do not understand tilde's

So if I want to reference /home/amq/keystore.jks, how exactly do I do this if I cant use an absolute path

... or is this comment obsolete ?